The Fescue Ground Game

The second reveals the course’s intent early. It is a study in deception: a violent visual framed by dunes that, in practice, offer a generous embrace. While not a strict geometric Punchbowl, the hole occupies a natural hollow where the flanks act as kick-plates, gathering the ball toward the center. The turf—fescue cut tight to the sand—demands a relationship with the ground. To attack this green through the air is to fight the coastal wind, a battle the player will lose. The prudent play is low, allowing the camber of the land to feed the ball to the hole.

Before the architects arrived, this dune-scape slept beneath a blanket of industrial pine. Tom Doak and Brian Slawnik did not construct this hole so much as they excavated it, peeling back the vegetation to reveal the contours waiting underneath. The result is a seamlessness often absent in modern construction. The hole sits in its sandy cradle as if the ocean winds carved it a century ago, indifferent to the exclusivity of the club that now surrounds it.

There is a specific vanity in pulling a sixty-degree wedge on this turf. It is an act of hubris the course will punish. The wind here is heavy, and the lie is tighter than a drumhead. The putter is not merely an option from thirty yards out; it is the only sensible instrument. The aerial route promises glory but usually delivers the scrub. The ground game offers a chaotic, tumbling path to the cup—and a par written in ink rather than hope.